


In Lieu of a Blanket Fort

by vanillafluffy



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors
Genre: Curtain Fic, Homecoming, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 23:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11862030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: There's no place like home.





	In Lieu of a Blanket Fort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taryn (Hermit)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Taryn+%28Hermit%29).



More than anything, Spence wants to go home. He knows Jupe will have something good cooked for supper, and he’ll tuck Spence in and probably crawl in with him, spooning against him til he falls asleep. It’s been a week of multiple crises. Spencer Reid has been from Iowa to Oregon to Wisconsin without a break; he and the rest of the team are wrung out. Now the jet is descending over Viriginia, and in an hour, he’ll be back in the condo that’s their interim pied-a-terre.

The last thing he expects is the block around the sublet condo to be surrounded by 21.2% of DC’s law enforcement vehicles and 16.4% of fire and emergency vehicles. There’s no fire than he can see, but he can postulate multiple scenarios that might evoke such a response.

After being shunted away by a patrol officer who doesn’t give a damn that he’s with the FBI (and a resident), Spence steers the Volvo into a sidestreet and calls Jupe.

“What’s going on there?”

What’s going on where?”

“Look outside--there’s a strong police presense around the building, and they won’t let me in.”

“You’re at the condo?”

“Yes!” He doesn’t usually snap at Jupe, but today the other man seems to be trying to be obtuse.

“I guess that means you haven’t checked your messages in a few days. We’re out of there, finally. Do you remember how to get to the new place?”

“Oh.” He feels sheepish and anxious at the same time. He’s glad to be out of the condo they’ve been in since the fire that wiped out their townhouse--he’s hated the sublet since day one--but new situations tend to provoke his insecurities. “I’ll be there in a little while.”

The property Jupe got for their new home was formerly a small publishing house. He’s been fixing it up over the last ten months. Spence has only been there twice; he can’t imagine living in the big, open, three-story building. It’s been the cause of more than one disagreement, but at this point, he’s ready to sleep on the floor on a mattress--anything to get out of the noisy population in substandard construction.

As he pulls into the cul-de-sac, the garage door slides up, and Spence eases in between Jupe’s vintage Mercedes and the old panel van he uses to shift furniture and construction supplies.

He’s tired, and dreads the next hour--he’s stuck here, for better or worse--Spence can’t make himself climb out of the car. He sits there, looking ahead at the rim of the loading dock. Beyond it, there’s a wall that wasn’t there the last time he was.

After a few minutes, his spouse appears, hopping down between the two cars. “You need a hand with your luggage?” Spence nods. At least if Jupe takes it in hand, his go-bag will get repacked with clean clothes and he won’t end up 2000 miles away with a load of dirty laundry.

His steps drag as they make their way up the concrete risers, past the old tool cage toward the industrial elevator at the back corner of the building. “New wall,” he remarks, and Jupe nods.

“Let me show you,” he says, dropping Spence’s duffel beside the lift. The new wall is punctuated by a solid-looking door with a combination lock. Jupe punches in 2-0-0-1 and the lock retracts with a beep.

They’re in a short corridor with a weathered sign on the long wall--”Last Chance Gas!”. To the left, there’s another wall at right-angles to the opening into the main room. This one is also vintage: “Jones Gas-N-Go”.

“The useful thing about having a fairly common last name,” Jupe says meditatively, “is that one does occasionally run across some interesting personalized memorabilia.”

Spence is too busy trying to take it all in to answer him. Obviously, the space is still a work in progress, but there’s a lot to see: an old lunch counter, the back half of a car with tailfins, a gas pump, a pinball machine, jukebox and-- “A pool table?” He moves closer. “Good grief.”

Jupe is wearing his Cheshire cat grin. “I got that at a storage auction, thinking I was buying a big dining table. Then I uncovered it.”

Spence laughs, a little hysterically. “A leopard-print pool table? Garcia’s going to love it.”

“We’re not quite ready to entertain yet,” Jupe says, “but I imagine this place will be rather popular once it’s open for business. ”

To say the least, Spence thinks as they take the elevator up to the second floor. It’s easy to imagine the team taking over their game room, shooting pool, having drinks and snacks at the concession stand, all to the tunes of whatever oldies Jupe programs the jukebox with…Jupe loves to entertain, and Spence doesn’t doubt that his friends will feel welcome.

To his surprise, when the lift reaches the middle floor, instead of walls, there are white curtains partitioning the space around the lift. Not curtains, he realizes after a moment. Drop-cloths, spattered with various green and purple shades. Typical Jupiter--it’s recycled _and_ it’s being used in a novel way. 

Jupe ushers him into an intimate lounge-type space. Or maybe this is their new living room? It’s not very big, in comparison with the size of the second floor. There’s a battered brown leather sofa against an inner wall, an area rug and floor lamp beside a tweed-covered wing chair. None of it was in the condo, but then, Jupe had loathed that over-stuffed floral furniture as badly as Spence had hated the paper-thin walls and constant press of neighbors. 

“There’s the bathroom, if you want to grab a shower while I rustle up some hot food,” Jupe suggests.

The bathroom is actually two adjoining rooms. The first is a typical restroom. It has two toilets (in accessible stalls) and the sinks have been built extra-tall to accommodate their height. The second room is fully tiled with an open shower space more than big enough for them both, and, in the far corner, a hot tub. Tempting as it is, Spence prudently opts for a shower. Otherwise, he’s convinced, he’d fall asleep in the big tub and drown.

Jupe hasn’t spared any luxury. The towel rack is heated, he discovers when he gets out of the shower. A clean pair of pajamas awaits him.

Dinner is a bowl of old-fashioned goulash, the kind with tomatoes and pasta and hamburger meat. Spence eats hungrily. The fuller he gets, the more he wants to go to sleep, but he tries to feign alertness--he knows Jupe has been looking forward to showing off his handiwork for months. His husband isn’t fooled, and he’s too kind-hearted to press the point.

“You look like the world’s tallest raccoon,” his husband says when Spence finally sets the spoon down. “The circles around your eyes…let’s get you into bed. You can look around tomorrow, it’s not going anywhere.”

Spence doesn’t protest. Jupe guides him across the floor to the far side of the big open space--”That’s going to be our living room, as soon as I find us some decent furniture”--to the most interesting king-sized bed Spence has ever seen.

It’s a four-poster bed, but the posts are made from telephone poles, and they’re different heights from about seven-and-a-half to ten feet tall. It has a canopy of sorts--it’s camouflage netting--as well as a camouflage print comforter. There’s a stenciled sign hanging on the brick wall at the head of the bed: “G.I. Joe Slept Here”.

“Wild,” Spece yawns.

He reclines against the mattress. As usual, he’s on the left side of the bed, leaving the right side for Jupe. That’s the way they’ve always done it….

“How’s that?” Jupe asks.

Spence cracks his eyes open. Above the camo canopy, white twinkle lights stand in for stars. “Treehouse,” he mumbles to Jupe’s satisfied grin. He gazes up at it for a moment before his eyelids once again become too heavy to sustain their own weight.

There’s movement nearby as Jupe climbs into bed with him. Spence feels himself being cuddled, and relaxes fully into sleep, home at last.

 

…


End file.
